I will give you the point about a lack of inflation indexing.
I stuck entirely with federal numbers when comparing capital-gains to income taxes to make it a more apples-to-apples comparison. It looks like you took that in order to compare california-specific state+federal capital gains tax, and compared it to federal-only income tax?
The other issue of high-cost states being more often included in high-rate brackets (due to federal tax brackets not being adjusted for cost-of-living) is a different, and also complex, issue.
> You missed a major reason long-term capital gains rates are lower than income tax rates: they are not indexed for inflation in the US and inflation on income is negligible. As a matter of tax policy, it is much simpler to reduce the rate than to compute a very large inflation deduction, but you can find countries that go both ways.
Very interesting point.
You missed a major reason long-term capital gains rates are lower than income tax rates: they are not indexed for inflation in the US and inflation on income is negligible. As a matter of tax policy, it is much simpler to reduce the rate than to compute a very large inflation deduction, but you can find countries that go both ways.